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Red Sox 2013 ALCS: Boston believed all along, but season was very much on brink in Game 2

Jarrod Saltalamacchia

Boston Red Sox players celebrates with Jarrod Saltalamacchia, center, after Saltalamacchia hits the game winning single during Game 2 of the American League baseball championship series against the Detroit Tigers Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013, in Boston. The Red Sox won 6-5. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

BOSTON — The Red Sox chorus after Sunday night's jaw-dropping 6-5 win over the Tigers went like this:

• Jarrod Saltalamacchia: "Felt that sense we were going to break out of it."
• John Farrell: "We keep coming. That's been a characteristic the entire season, it was on display here tonight. And once again our guys don't quit until that last final out is made."
• Shane Victorino: "We keep playing until the last out is made. We came out and kept battling, Papi (David Ortiz) came up with the big hit."
• David Ross: "We knew we just needed to get something."
• Jonny Gomes: "The way this team's built, there were no doubts in our mind when we had no hits in the sixth that we were going to win it. That's just the character and identity we've built throughout the season."

Sure, the Red Sox believe and lived all of that. They don't quit. Grit and team spirit and never-give-up-ness abound.

But to imply that such a feeling was steady and universal the entire time this weekend, that there really wasn't a point where at least some on the team started to worry and started to have the sinking feeling that probably most of the sold-out Fenway Park crowd felt — that would be a stretch.

"I think that's human nature," Andrew Miller said. "I'm sure those thoughts enter the 25 guys that are playing the given night, but I think you know that all you need is one little spark."

Boston was headed for a really bad place. Talk all you want about what kind of comeback the 2004 team proved can be pulled off in an American League Championship Series, heading to Detroit down 2-0 with Justin Verlander on the hill in Game 3 — in the Tigers' home park no less — could well have meant the virtual end of Boston's season.

The lineup was being shredded. The way Tigers starters Anibal Sanchez and Max Scherzer carved up Boston's hitters in Games 1 and 2 at least seemed to be — to borrow a word bench coach Torey Lovullo suggested — "absurd."

"It's almost absurd?" Lovullo offered. "Well, listen, I think we have a very capable offense. And when their pitchers are mowing us down the way they were for the first 15 or 16 innings, they deserve a lot of credit. They were working on edges, throwing 95 mph — they're throwing power fastballs. Spotting up their breaking ball. I think we just weathered the storm. We kind of did what we had to to kind of hang in there."

It was certainly historic. Tigers starting pitchers have struck out 11 or more more batters in three straight postseason games, stretching back to their Division Series against the A's. The Tigers are also the first team in postseason history to have three straight playoff games open with five no-hit innings. In an October setting, that's mind-boggling from a pitching perspective.

The pitching also, reasonably, would have been hard-pressed to maintain such a pace. The Red Sox knew that too, and that was a substantial reason to hope.

Will Middlebrooks might have had the best summation. This wasn't a case of the Red Sox losing their hitting discipline and general composure, not on a large scale.

"The last two days, we’ve faced two of the best starters in the league," the third baseman said. "They were both on, which is a pretty scary thing. They’re making pitches that you just don’t see made very often and when they make mistakes, we’re lining out or grounding out. it’s pretty tough. As a team in that situation, you have to just do what you can, work at-bats, grind at-bats, get the pitch count up. As much as they don’t seem like they’re human at the time, they are. They’re going to get tired and we’re going to get in that bullpen.”

It worked out for the Red Sox, thanks to the rally Middlebrooks started with a double in the eighth inning, and thanks to the incredible David Ortiz. The collective attitude of hope was needed, but what made Sunday night most remarkable is how poorly the game was going for the Red Sox until that eighth inning, how slim their chances looked. They should have been just a bit worried, and they probably were.